Let’s start
off with a hotel review.
Shower –
short, bed/comforter – love it, towels – thin, wifi – spotty.
Friday
started with the girls actually rolling out of bed early to go to the fitness
center. Their excitement was a soccer
player coming in to run on the treadmill. He asked if they’d mind if he played
music and Ab was pretty excited about the Spanish tunes he played.
Our hotel
had a breakfast buffet which really excites Molly since she declared ‘breakfast-is-my-favorite-meal”.
It was pretty good. Well, except for the forgotten waffle that I forgot about
and cooked twice as long as needed. (Just imagine a waffle-shaped Frisbee
here.)
We headed to
Chicago and as we were wandering around looking for parking near the Magnificent Mile we found The Big Bowl which is where my SIL called to tell me was a great place to eat. While my dish didn't look too appealing, it was really good! (Don't remember the name of it.)
We headed over to the MM where we wandered through
some stores. That was sort of the been-there-done-that-shopping experience. Go to
any local shopping mall and see about the same stores. (Can you tell I don’t
get real excited about shopping?!)
 |
| Found the girls.... |
 |
| 8 floor Macys |
Our next
stop was to find a beach. We found parking relatively close and my shy daughters threw up beach towels in the van and changed
into suits in the parking lot. So, here’s your Chicago beaches lesson: There
are 26 beaches along the lake, each varies in amenities. Some have sand that go
to the water, some are concrete walls that drop into the water. There are
beaches with public restrooms, a ‘volleyball’ beach, ‘exercise’ beach, and
other stuff. For our first-time trip
there, we wanted sand located very close to the water – which we found easily
enough. One toe in the water pretty much said that we are land-lovers on this
trip. (We later found out that Lake Michigan was a whopping 57 degrees in
temp.)
We did all take a snooze on the beach before we headed off to find the
Willis (aka Sears) Tower and this is where the day got ugly.
So, I was
using my Siri to give us directions to the Tower. We found parking that I thought was
reasonably close. However, when we pulled in, the garage guy said we needed the
public parking and he gave us directions – go down that ramp, take a left then
take two rights. Down the ramp led us
right to the garbage bins.
Going left
took us to an alley and a stop sign. Diagonally was an Einstein Brothers.
(Knowing this is important later in this story.) Not discouraged, we took right
into public parking where is was $38!!!! OK – parking is expensive in downtown
Chicago, but $38 for a brief time was parking-garage-robbery! As we paused to
mull over our next step before opening the gate, the garage lady came over to
check on us. She said we were a ways from the Tower and told us to go through
the garage, take a right, go to Wells and take a left. Okayyyyyy. We are off
again. We managed the right, but went
right on by Wells. Ugh! So, Siri redirected us and we ended up underground!!! I
didn’t even know there was an underground Chicago!!!
After driving this a bit
and again contemplating what to do, I finally told Mark just to turn at the
next right. This led us to an alley and
right back to the corner with the stop sign and the Einstein’s. What the
heck?!? Third time's a charm, right? And
the Gouldings weren’t done yet! So, back to Siri’s directions – back underground
– back to taking whatever the next right was – and yep, you guessed it – back to
the alley and Einstein’s on the corner!!!!
Determined that we were NOT going underground, we finally figured out
where Wells Street was, and then Mark passed by it. We were in the right lane
and needed the left turn! Finding a U-turn was difficult, but managed. And,
then, we headed back and Mark took a left onto Wells – A ONE-WAY street – and us
going the wrong way!!! OOPS – U-turn again! Well, that was it for us! We weren’t
going to the Willis Tower because we were in a bad Groundhog Day situation and
figured we’d end up at Einstein’s again, so we threw in the towel and headed to
the hotel. (And during this time, Abby was starving and Molly desperately
needed a restroom, but as always – we were laughing until I was crying because
it was so funny.) Our consolation ‘prize’ was Buffalo Wild Wings and beers for
Mark and me. Tomorrow was another day.
